Culture

Although more than three million high school seniors take standardized college admissions tests like the SAT "it is well known by educational researchers that high-school grades are the best indicator of student readiness for college, and standardized admissions tests are useful primarily as a supplement to the high-school record," according to Richard C. Atkinson in a speech to be presented April 15, 2009 at the American Educational Research Association's 90th annual meeting in San Diego. "We now have a much deeper appreciation of why assessment of achievement and curriculum mastery remains…

San Diego, CA, April 14, 2009 – Frequent Mental Distress (FMD), defined as having 14 or more days in the previous month when stress, depression and emotional problems were not good , is not evenly distributed across the United States. In fact, certain geographic areas have consistently high or consistently low FMD incidence, as shown in a study published in the June 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Combining data from annual large-scale surveys in 1993-2001 and 2003-2006 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers found that the adult prevalence…

A team of education, economics and public policy scholars has built a new tool that can quickly assess how a particular school finance reform proposal might impact individual California school districts. The tool can be used to assess any formula that consolidates so-called "categorical" or restricted, special-purpose state and federal funds. It will be discussed at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Diego on Tuesday, April 14. "California currently allocates more than $40 billion of tax revenue -- more than $1,000 per resident -- through a school…

DALLAS – April 14, 2009 – A procedure used in conjunction with a vaginal ultrasound might make it easier to visualize and diagnose diseases in the lining of the uterus, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. Physicians evaluated the endometrium, a cavity that lines the inside of the uterus, in women who were in the midst of or had gone through menopause and who complained of abnormal bleeding. Abnormal bleeding can indicate certain diseases of the endometrium that may or may not be malignant. The current standard of care is to blindly biopsy the endometrium; however, the…

Emotions linked to our moral sense awaken slowly in the mind, according to a new study from a neuroscience group led by corresponding author Antonio Damasio, director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California. The finding, contained in one of the first brain studies of inspirational emotions in a field dominated by a focus on fear and pain, suggests that digital media culture may be better suited to some mental processes than others. "For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people's social and psychological situations, we…

Smoking both tobacco and marijuana increases the risk of respiratory symptoms and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), found a study in CMAJ http://www.cmaj.ca/press/pg814.pdf. Smoking only marijuana, however, was not associated with increased risks. The study, which surveyed 878 people aged 40 years or more in Vancouver, Canada, was part of the Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease (BOLD) Initiative that sought to determine the prevalence of COPD in adults over 40 years in the general population. It differed from other studies in that the study population was older and the prevalence…

A review of previously published studies suggests that vegetable and nut intake and a Mediterranean dietary pattern appear to be associated with a lower risk for heart disease, according to a report published in the April 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, intake of trans-fatty acids and foods with a high glycemic index may be harmful to heart health. "The relationship between dietary factors and coronary heart disease has been a major focus of health research for almost half a century," the authors write as background information in the…

Young adults who have been incarcerated appear more likely to have high blood pressure and left ventricular hypertrophy, an enlarging of the heart muscle that is a common consequence of hypertension, according to a report in the April 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. They also appear less likely to have access to regular medical care than those who have not been incarcerated. "Incarceration has become increasingly frequent in the lives of young adults," the authors write as background information in the article. Between 1987 and 2007, the U.S.…

Abnormalities in the fibers connecting different brain areas may contribute to muscle disorders such as writer's cramp, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Previous studies of individuals with writer's cramp have identified changes in the gray matter of several brain areas, according to background information in the article. These include the basal ganglia (structures that help control and start movement), sensorimotor cortex (controls sensory and motor functions), thalamus (coordinates multiple impulses including some related…

Troy, N.Y. – The speed at which heat moves between two materials touching each other is a potent indicator of how strongly they are bonded to each other, according to a new study by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Additionally, the study shows that this flow of heat from one material to another, in this case one solid and one liquid, can be dramatically altered by "painting" a thin atomic layer between materials. Changing the interface fundamentally changes the way the materials interact. "If you have a nanoparticle that is inside a liquid solution, you can't just 'peel away…